I am a book wyrm (like a bookworm, but more like a dragon on her hoard than a bug chewing up paper); and I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to audiobooks when I’m busy with other things and reading physical or digital books when I have time. I like fluffy brain candy romantacy, cozy fantasy, and romance. But I also love intricate sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, and the occasional biography or interesting non-fiction.
Before I was a parent, I spent more time reading physical books. When I was preparing to be a foster parent, I read as many books on foster parenting, adoption, children’s mental health, and psychology as I could get my hands on. As I get older and the world outside my window seems bleaker, I find myself turning to books more for escapism than for information and for that I usually turn to lists compiled by libraries: best sellers, banned books, LGBTQ+, found family, up and coming authors, etc. I also lean on my emotional support librarian, my baby sister. (She’s… obviously not a baby anymore.)
Anyway, I used to be so selective about what I read, content-wise. I’d look at those lists and read whatever was not on them for the most part. And, as I got older, I realized just how much I was missing out on. There are these amazing characters I’d never get to meet if I stayed in one lane. It turns out I, in some ways, prefer the books on those lists because they teach me things about myself I never knew before. They explore themes that other books are often afraid to tackle. Coming-of-age stories that are fraught with emotional baggage that is just relatable enough to feel familiar, but distant enough to not feel all the things about it.
A good example of that is a very silly book called Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh and Solutions and Other Problems by the same author. I mention this because her content is the home of my favorite meme of all time:
I forget that not everyone knows this author or this meme, so when I raise my fist and shout “Clean all the things!” or “Do all the things!” or “Read all the things!” I maybe just look a little deranged. Sorry. It’s just who I am as a person. So, anyway, this meme is a part of a much larger comic strip dealing with how the author is bad at being an adult. They wake up with motivation to do all the things and then, eventually, they run out of motivation and it’s more like the second image.
I get this way with books, too. I was on a research spree for some writing I’m doing and I took out 15 books from the library. I know. It was a lot. I read three of them, glanced at four, and ignored most of the rest. But I did listen to two audiobooks I borrowed and read a few books on my Kindle.
I got overwhelmed by all the glorious text piled in front of me and suddenly anything else seemed like a good idea. It’s a struggle I’m working through.
The point being, I would never have read this book as past me. I would have seen a few swear words and been like “Nope. Trash.” and been done. The same goes for anything with higher than a G-rating. And I’m not saying there is anything wrong with you if that’s your standard. That’s fine. But for me, as a person who is both trying to become an author and a mom of kids whose histories are vastly different than mine, I find I’m doing myself a disservice to bring my world down to a narrow lane of only acceptable. I’ve discovered prose that I would never, ever have seen before. I’ve learned facts I wouldn’t have learned.
All of this became something to me when I was being interviewed for a podcast because a short story I wrote is being published in a book. One of the questions was, “What do you recommend people read? What do you read?” and I went on a tangent about how everyone should at least try to read something by an LGBTQ+ author and someone of a different race or nationality. I was rather forceful then pulled it back to clarify. “My bottom line is that to be a good writer, and to know more about the people in the world, I read all the things. That’s my advice. Read all the things!” and did the fist pump and everything. The interviewer was amused. She was also my age and knew the meme I referenced, so at least I didn’t need to clarify that part of the conversation.
So, if you have convictions that prevent you from reading certain books, certainly don’t go against that. But I think we will all be better for each other if we read all the things we can about one another—especially people who are different than ourselves. Read about different countries from the perspective of someone who lives there. Read books translated from different languages. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was translated from Swedish and the perspective from that alone changes the story to something bigger than it seemed.
Read books about psychology, even if you don’t agree with it. Read books about religions you don’t know anything about by people who follow that religion. You’ll be more likely to understand how much representation matters when you see how different your perspective is from someone else’s. There’s no other way I know that is quite as good at teaching about someone else’s point of view. Give it a try. Read all the things!
